a bleeding purple utah jazz blog

Game 21 @ LAL: [Mushroom Cloud Exploding]

I’m inclined to say that this game, or more specifically the fourth quarter, never happened. Unfortunately, I know my Jazz all too well, and yes, this is what they’re capable of.

However, while I’m definitely enjoying the wins, I can’t help but feel like the Jazz could crumble at any moment. (H/T: Me, one day ago. See how well I know my Jazz?)

With losses like these, sometimes you feel so disgusted and disillusioned you have no words. Sometimes you need to rant and rave until you have no words left (i.e. how this blog was born). Sometimes you’re just beyond caring. And sometimes you wish you could be beyond caring.

As I watched the Jazz play hot potato offense in the second quarter, I thought to myself, “We look like we’ve been thrown into some kind of game and no one bothered to tell us the rules.” And then the Jazz proceeded to surprise me by building a small lead and keeping it close once the lead died through three quarters.

And then, every iota of pride in the Jazzmen’s bodies fled the building and our boys decided it was time to submit to the ugly men in yellow like they were Sasha being taken by Kobe from behind and let the uglies Globetrotter score and dunk on them at will.

The Jazz’s braindead, pathetic “jumpers or die” strategy brought to my mind the hapless Angola team doing nothing but launching threes against the 1992 Dream Team (final score of that game: 116-48).* Consider these fourth quarter stats:

Yep. Our boys had more 24-second violations, turnovers, shooting fouls, and total fouls than field goals in the quarter. Koufos had three consecutive turnovers on three consecutive possessions, and Maynor (0-4), Boozer (0-3), Matthews (0-3), Brewer, Memo, and Sap combined for 0-13.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find some hard liquor to wash the horrible taste out of my mouth.

*For the life of me, i.e. five minutes of googling, I could not find Dream Team box scores. Fortunately, I suddenly remembered the existence of C’s old, beloved Dream Team coffee table book and was able to quickly locate it.